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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417343">Perpendicular Lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowCrayon/pseuds/YellowCrayon'>YellowCrayon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Kinda homoerotic, Purgatorio, in which i purposefully misintepret the original text</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:15:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowCrayon/pseuds/YellowCrayon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What does it mean to love someone you've never known?</p><p>Virgil and Statius have a conversation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Perpendicular Lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The part in italics is from the Durling translation</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Virgil began: “Love, kindled by virtue, always kindles other love, as long as its flame appears externally; so from the hour when Juvenal came down into the Limbo of Hell among us and revealed to me your feelings, my affection toward you has been greater than any ever felt for a person not seen, so that now these stairways seem short to me.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>“Did I really mean that much to you?”</p><p>There they went walking. Statius and Virgil, Dante close behind, approaching the sixth terrace. Virgil mulled over Statius’s question for a bit, wanting to choose his words in a manner that adequately expressed the topic’s personal significance. He knew the answers to many things: The structures of Hell, the philosophy of the soul, a little bit about the workings of Love. But with regards to that specific question, how could his ardor for the subject, such a complex thing, ever be clearly conveyed? He normally expressed his thoughts with an effortless eloquence, but it was a different matter entirely to be face-to-face with the man who came to know the sweet light of salvation because of<em> him</em>.</p><p>As if opening his heart and deliberating on the contents found there, Virgil carefully selected a tender thought to put into words. “Yes, you did. I have always found it touching to hear about how my poetry affected people, but to put it simply… Hearing about you from Juvenal, it finally gave me a name to latch on to. And now, I have a face to put it to.” He gazed into the distance, Statius watching. Virgil continued. “Limbo is a hopeless place. This I know, and have known for centuries. It is the nature of our punishment; Being subject to an eternity of yearning.</p><p>“When I say Limbo is hopeless, I mean that the souls of Limbo have no hope for themselves. And yet, hoping is quite inevitable for us. We as shades cannot help but to keep our minds on the future, to latch onto prophecies of those Earthly places we once knew as home. We ourselves are hopeless, but we hope on behalf of others.”</p><p>Dante, ever listening, thought back to all he had seen in Hell. He silently recalled Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti’s miserable cries, thinking his son dead. Was that compassion, or some other indescribable feeling? He remembered Brunetto Latini, talking tenderly, his eyes shining so bright in spite of his viciously burning body. There was nothing left for him, but all he needed was the solace that his former pupil might become the good person that he couldn’t be. And in front of him, Dante saw his teacher, his sweet poet who, though damned himself, took upon a journey to help a stranger avoid the same fate.</p><p>“Most of the time, we cannot act on behalf of this hope,” continued Virgil. “How can you change your fate and that of other people if you are in Hell? I lost that ability upon departing the first life. My poetry speaks for me now. Like the eternal soul, it continues to exist long after death. Art gave me a voice, gave me the power to speak to the living beyond the grave. Though I am powerless in the afterlife, I leave a piece of myself in the hearts of people who read my works. So when I heard that my poetry had opened your eyes and led you to salvation…” Virgil looked into Statius’s eyes, and found something of a glimmer there. “I felt such profound intimacy for a person I had never even known.”</p><p>Upon hearing this, Statius smiled a little. He took Virgil’s hand in his and pressed it. “Know that the affection you feel for me, I reflect back at you tenfold.” Statius’s heart glowed, and with it the sun, whose burning brightness illuminated the entire terrace. Under the sunlight, Virgil’s laurel wreath encapsulated his head in a golden ring. Statius paused. “Love is a very tricky thing, isn’t it? We both meant so much to the other, never having known each other, and I unaware that our sentiments were shared. And who would have said that one day we would have met each other? Before today we never partook in conversation, and yet I can say with confidence that I consider you a friend close to my heart.”</p><p>These words so moved Virgil that he took a second to contemplate them. He then replied: “There isn’t a word of yours that does not fill me with love. I hold you in high regard as a dear friend, or perhaps something more. In any case, I cannot describe the pleasure of getting to know you, even if only for a short duration: For you will depart to a better place, and I must return from whence I came. I myself will never know Paradise, but through you I can see a gleam of that eternal light and Love. Only once was I ever able to witness it in Limbo. We each face our own separate eternities— mine will be more bearable knowing that another considers me so dear to them. And for that, I thank you.”</p><p>And as they walked, Dante watched them converse, all the while with a faint smile upon his lips. There they went, the two poets, two shades, one damned and one saved. Their similarities only made their differences more pronounced, but in that moment walking side by side, exchanging words back-and-forth like old friends, the two of them tread lightly on the same ground. Any onlooking stranger would have deemed them to be equals.</p>
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